User Feedback :: DSL FAQ Boot camp - Bring a helmet.



All I did was change the gcombust.lnk file to
sudo gcombust
:)

waaait... that's cheating...

:p

-J.P.
SaidinUnleashed

FAQ is coming along...

Quote (jerome5 @ Sep. 01 2004,23:05)
All I did was change the gcombust.lnk file to
sudo gcombust
:)

Yes you can do that. Depending on  how you have Gcombust installed (dsl.extension or a deb package or apt-get) you now have some options per the Gcombust FAQ and from some personal experiences.

What I've found with a hdd install of DSL 0.71 on my machine is that unless you are running as root, Gcombust and cdrecord both 'fuss' that you may be in a buffer underrun likely situation, and that the burn process takes a bit longer than if I do things as root.

The CD that I burned this morning and finalized is not readable on a WIndows machine, but is on this NixBox. Some of the data that I archived was intended for use on other boxen other than the DSL machines around here. Oh well, I'll just reboot and do it the old way from the CLI and be done with it. :p

SaidinUnleashed, I'm sorry I didn't post here sooner, but the whole military thing really turned me off.  I searched the forums (which is what we tell everyone else to do, right?) for the terms search AND beginning and search AND beggining (because we're geeks not lit majors) and I found the following good candidates for FAQ questions:

1) How do I create the CD from the iso file (or I made a CD and it doesn't work)
    Did you check the MD5 sum of the *.iso file?
    Can you use Roxio or Nero to burn your file?

2) What are & how do I load these dsl files?
    dsl files are collections of files that have been tarred &
    gzipped (*.tar.gz) and then renamed *.dsl

    to load them:
    double click on the emelfm button, and navigate to the file.
    Then click on the file and hit the mydsl button
           or
    type mydsl-load thedslname.dsl

3) How do I save files/settings/icons/mail/anything between live CD sessions?

4) How do I load/use apt-get/dpkg/synaptic?
    a) download the dpkg.dsl file
        double click on the emelfm button, and navigate to the file.
        Then click on the file and hit the mydsl button
    b) open a bash shell and type dpkg-restore

         usage:
    a) modify /etc/apt/sources.list if needed (stable to unstable)
        type apt-get update
        type apt-get install make <or whatever>
    b) download the *.deb files and use dpkg -i make.deb <or whatever>

5) How do I create a dsl file
    a) using the fantastic deb2dsl script.
          deb2dsl topic
    b) creating menus and sub menus
          look here for simple or here for submenus
    c) creating icons
          look to clivesay's post
    d) creating compressed *.ci files
          look at creating compressed iso files

6) How can I remaster the CD to add what I want?
    look to meo's remastering summary

7) Where is the kernel source?
    you need to get the 3.4 knoppix kernel source (5/17/2004)

8) How do I change my keyboard to <Spanglish>
    Ctr+Alt+Backspace
    loadkeys pl <for Polish, es is Spanish, fr is french, spanglish is something else>
    startx
    < available keymaps are in in /usr/share/keymaps >

9) how do I set up my modem to use ppp?
    I got a lot of help from here

I think if we get good answers to these, we can cut down substantially on the same question traffic and get on with the meat and potatoes questions

massive update day!! woo-hoo!

anyways, lost several pages of the faq when my laptop crashed a few weeks ago, but here's what i ended up saving, quite by accident. I'm putting it in quote tags, because i'm too ing lazy to edit out all the legal crap and formatting.

Quote
Damn Small Linux Forum FAQ (Full-size!)

by J.P. Nimmo A.K.A. SaidinUnleashed

Damn Small Linux is © 2003 - 2004 John Andrews
Linux is a Trademark of Linus Torvalds
All other Licensed names used in this FAQ are the property of their respective owners.


The purpose of this FAQ is to answer the most common questions that people ask about, and the most common issues that poeple have with Damn Small Linux, which I will, from now on, refer to as DSL.


Q: What is DSL?

A: DSL is a 50 MB live-bootable distribution of Linux derived from Klaus Knopper's "Knoppix". Live-bootable means that you do not have to install it to try it out. Just pop it into your CD-ROM and turn on your PC. A few minutes later, you're using DSL!

Q: Okay, I get the Live-boot thing, but 50 MB just isn't that much! I mean, how functional can DSL possbly be?!

A: Incredibly functional! With DSL, you can everything that Windows can do, and even a few things that windows can't! DSL even has some things that the big distros are getting into. DSL has 3 web browsers, 2 chat clients, a fully functional office suite, cd burning capabilities, a remote desktop client, a terminal server client, 4 editors, a multimedia player, all sorts of system tools, and even games. DSL can do all this because it uses small, lightweight, but powerful applications.

Q: Okay, that really wasn't much of an answer. Can DSL do (insert job here)?

A: Here. I'll list the applications in DSL in groups and tell you what they do. All of these apps can be found in the menu by following the string above the apps name, except Fluxbox. It starts on its own. The strings look like this -

"Games>>TuxNES>>Sack of Flour"

To follow this string, right-click to open the menu, highlight "Games" and the Games submenu will open. Highlight "TuxNES", then "Sack of Flour". Click "Sack of Flour" to start the game!

Some of these apps have shortcuts on the desktop, but I'm listing them according to the Fluxbox menu.

Anyways, here are the apps, as well as a short description of each one.

Fluxbox - the graphical interface (GUI). Probably the first thing you'll encounter in DSL. Just remember, you have to right-click to open the menu.

Apps>>Editors>>Scite
Scite - Scite is an fully functional editor that uses a GTK interface. It has a lot of familiar buttons, and is very easy to use. Scite automatically recognizes commands for several programming languages, like C, C++, python, and several others. This is what you would use to edit configuration files, write programs, or whatever other "under the hood" tinkering you would want to do.

Apps>>Editors>>Vim
Vim - Vim is another editor, but instead of being GUI based like Scite, Vim is text-based. You can use it from the X-terminal. Vim is a lot like the more common editor Vi, but is much smaller and lighter. Personally, when I first started using Linux, I found Vim to be confusing, but it is quite useful, once you learn how to use it.

Apps>>Editors>>Zile
Zile - Zile is a clone of the extremely popular Emacs editor. By far, the most functional, terminal based editor (IMHO), Zile is also fairly easy to use. F10 shows you the mini-help. Just remember that in Zile's command list, "C" means Ctrl.

Apps>>Editors>>Nano
Nano - Nano is a clone of the popular terminal-based editor, Pico. Pico is extremely easy to use. All of the commands for Pico are listed at the bottom of the screen. "^" means Ctrl, so to exit Pico, you would press Ctrl+x. It's really easy. NOTE: some of the functions, like the Get Help and Spellcheck functions had to be removed due to space restrictions. But don't worry, it doesn't affect performance.

Apps>>Graphics>>xzgv Image Viewer
xzgv - Xzgv is an image viewer (duh). You can use it to view the most common types of pictures. However, .bmp isnt supported, because .bmp's are freaking huge.

Apps>>Graphics>>Xpaint
Xpaint - Xpaint is an image creation program, similar to MSpaint. Obviously, Xpaint has nowhere near the functionality of the GIMP, but for a 50 MB space restriction, Xpaint works like a charm.

Apps>>Office>>Ted
Ted - Ted is a lightweight wordprocessor. It was originally meant to be something like MSwordpad, but it grew into a fully functional WP capable of creating documents in Rich-text format (.rtf).

Apps>>Office>>Xpdf
Xpdf - Think Adobe Acrobat Reader. It lets you view and print PDF files.

Apps>>Office>>Xcalc
Xcalc - A neat little scientific calculator program. Very useful when the need arises.

Apps>>Office>>ABS Spreadsheet
ABS Spreadsheet - A cool GTK spreadsheet program. At the midpoint between size and functionality, ABS is a nice happy medium. Nice and small, but powerful enough for most things. Compatible with MS Excel, so that's good too.

Apps>>Office>>SQLite
SQLite - a very small variant of the SQL address book. This is actually a very good Address book!


yeah, i know, it's not a lot, but well windows sucks like that. So deal.

-J.P.
SaidinUnleashed

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